It seems I expend a lot of energy expressing excuses for my neurotic behaviour in a way that is pleasing to myself, instead of rolling up my sleeves to do something about it. Hey, that rings a bell – “Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it” – Karl Marx.

Marx wrote ‘all profit is theft’, but he profited from the profits of others.Schopenhauer wasn’t nearly so miserable as someone who has just read one of his books must feel. Apparently he wrote doom and gloom and lived as a hedonist. And Virginia Woolf, who had arrived at the conclusion that for the world to become a better place, ‘one would have to give up inherited wealth’. But she didn’t give up her family purse that filled up automatically like the magic treacle jug without her having to lift a little finger. She committed suicide.

The only way it will ever change is if people stop living in contradiction with their stated principles.

“One's basic nature is totally without hope, and yet one's nervous system is made out of the optimistic stuff.” Francis Bacon

I saunter into the kitchen to make coffee and glance at the kitchen notice board and see PAIN and coffee.

Could it be I had never noticed that bread in French means douleur in English? Is it the douleur of the constantly renewed effort of earning our daily bread?

In any case, all these words are superfluous today, a mere pretext to show the work of two amazing artist(e)s. Painter Jan Roset and singer Etenesh Wassié. Above is a clip of Etenesh with Le Tigre, but she also has a duo with Mathieu Sourrisseau on the bass. My favourite is Sew Neutu. I don't understand a word of what she is singing, just as I haven't got a clue how Jan achieves her effect, but these are two languages I wish I could speak!

And a picture of my favourite Scottish islet - Ailsa Craig - at sunset. Taken from Dunure.

02/02/2009

Listening to the radio, I learn of a classical composer (I believe it was Shostakovich but I couldn’t find confirmation of this) who had a piece of metal inside his head that vibrated, causing him to hear highly original music, which he immediately transcribed… The metal was shrapnel, and it moved when he tilted his head. I listen to the radio in the car, and unfortunately I arrived at my destination before I could find out if he decided to have it removed or tuned…

The same day I came across the word palindrome, which reminded me of palimpsest, and as I was finding out what it meant I uncannily came across the following example:

"Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas".

And palindromes don’t just exist in human language, they are also present in molecular biology…

Last weekend we had no electricity because of the storms, and I decided to allow myself the luxury of reading all day Saturday. I read a biography of Bjork, and then the book that jumped into my hands was Marguerite Duras' Un Barrage contre le Pacifique. I had been meaning to read this book for years. I love the title, and I love it even more because the Pacific in the title is the China Sea. Oh the enormity of it all. Duras’ mother apparently refused to call the water by its proper name.

Some time later I discovered the book has just been made into a new film with Isabelle Huppert as Duras’ mother. Excitedly I looked up the screening schedule and found that the film had been shown at our local cinema the night before the book jumped into my hand.

In other words, all this is proof that I most definitely am a part of the universe. I exist and I’m connected to everything else. There are some crossed wires and some delayed reactions in my circuits, is all.

I happened to visit Charlotte Higgins’ blog at the Guardian on the day that…

and here is my history painting…

Apart from the irresistibility of a freebie, there is the possibility of being involved in a crowd-sourced response project – a kind of big thank you to Keith Tyson – though, so far there are only eight of us. The other 4992 seem to be playing hard to get.

This raises the passably vast questions of what I think of gambling – I have always been against gambling, finding Pascal’s gambit intellectually dishonest – and the moral discomfort this causes reminds me of Lacan’s ne pas céder sur son désir and the feeling of trahison. Betrayal. Giving way, letting your standards slip, or just plain doing something you don’t believe in or doing something you believe to be wrong…

- and what art is, or Art, whether you like your A's capital or prefer a petit a, and could the two be related, and points to the démarche theory - a/Art is what is produced by artists, artists being people who are recognised by the community as producing art – winners of art prizes…